But he will face trial for assuming fake identity and forging documents

New Delhi, March 28, 2012 — Communist Party of India (Maoist) leader Kobad Ghandy earned a reprieve on Wednesday when a Sessions court here discharged him of offences under the stiff Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), thanks to a defective prosecution sanction obtained by the Delhi Police. However, he will stand trial for impersonation, cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy charges under the Indian Penal Code for assuming a fake identity and forging documents. He faces a maximum of seven years’ imprisonment for these charges against life imprisonment under the UAPA charges from which he was discharged.

Additional Sessions Judge Pawan Kumar Jain said: “I am of the considered opinion that there is sufficient material on record to make out a prima facie case for the offence punishable under Sections 20 and 38 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act against accused Kobad Ghandy. But since the cognisance order dated February 19, 2010, qua the offences punishable under the UAPA was not in accordance with the mandatory provisions of Section 45(2) of the UAPA, I hereby discharge accused Kobad Ghandy for the offences punishable under Section 10/13/18/20/38 of the UAPA. Similarly, I also discharge accused Rajinder Kumar for the offences punishable under Section 10/13/18/19/20 UAPA. However, there is sufficient material on record to make out a prima facie case against both the accused for the offences punishable under Section 419/420/468/474/120B Indian Penal Code.”

Ghandy’s counsel Rebecca John had pointed out that the investigating officer had violated Section 45(2) of the UAPA by not submitting the evidence he gathered to an independent authority constituted by the Central or State government, which after vetting the documents was to recommend the sanctioning authority (the Lieutenant Governor) to grant sanction for prosecution. Realising the blunder committed, the prosecution, last week, belatedly submitted a fresh prosecution sanction as per the Act in the form of a supplementary charge sheet.

“There is nothing to show that the evidence collected by the investigating officer was independently reviewed by any authority appointed by the Central government or that after review of collected evidence, such authority had ever made any recommendation to the Central government … Needless to say, the main object of imposing condition of independent review is to prevent the misuse of the stringent provisions of the UAPA by the law-enforcing agencies … Since provisions were inserted by Parliament, thus the State cannot take the plea that State was not aware of the provisions …. By obtaining the fresh sanction, prosecution is trying to cure an incurably bad sanction order, which in the absence of any provisions of law is not permissible,” Mr. Jain said.

The court said it was clear that Ghandy was an “active member” of the CPI (Maoist) and it appeared that “his role was to persuade people and exhort them for Maoism.” The court also noted that he had prepared forged documents in the name of Dilip Patel in order to conceal his identity and avoid arrest.

Mr. Jain added: “There is sufficient material on record to hold prima facie that accused Ghandy was a vibrant member of CPI (Maoist). Since the CPI (Maoist) is a declared terrorist organisation, presumption will [be] that [the] CPI (Maoist) is involved in terrorist acts. Accordingly, I am of the view that prima facie a case is made out against the accused Kobad Ghandy for the offence punishable under Section 20 and 38 of the UAPA.”

The judge further said there was no evidence on record to show that Ghandy had committed any terrorist act and hence he could not be called a “terrorist.” This finding also helped co-accused Rajinder, who was discharged for offence under Section 19 of the UAPA for harbouring a terrorist.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Q1: You have just formed united national People’s Struggle Committee-United Front. After all what it is all about?

Gajurel: Let’s not take it as a new organization. It was formed earlier.As far as the nature of the Front is concerned, the United National People’s Struggle Committee has not been formed simply to address certain specific problems facing the country but instead it has come into existence in order to institutionalize and guarantee the far reaching political changes by preserving and protecting the national integrity and also for an honorific integration of the army for which a people oriented constitution is demanded which in turn will bring in permanent peace in the country. The Front is also committed for raising the issues related with the people’s livelihood. There are several factors which have given birth to this Front. This could also be taken as a United Front with Revolutionary character in itself.In the Front as of today, the participation is of the Nepal Maoists and also of those organizations which were close to the party. Their coordinators are associated with this Front. In the future, we have plans, to include all those nationalist republicans and the left oriented people who prefer for a New Nepal. This may also include later some progressive nationalists and may add some other parties as well.

Q2: Is it that this Front has been formed by the Nepal Maoists party or is it a Front just given a shape by the Mohan Baidya panel of the party?

Gajurel: I told you earlier that this Front is not a new one. It had been in existence already.But since we could not wage any sort of struggle if the name was “People’s Council” because through such a Council, we will not be allowed to act instead such acts have had to be handled by the party itself. The crux of the matter is that when the party decides for a struggle then such Councils come into action. It was just because of this, the Front was not in a functioning state. It was not active as it should have been. Now we are reactivating the Front and to some extent we have already been in an activated stage.

Q3: It is being talked that you and your friends have been engaged in such activities which may split the party eventually. Your own party is in the government than how is it possible to wage a sort of struggle against your own set up?

Gajurel: You can’t have a revolution by splitting a Revolutionary party thus we have been exhibiting our utmost flexibility. We have been doing so in order not to allow the party to proceed in a wrong direction. The fresh CC decision is that you can push your views and perform various programs but much ahead of this you have to inform the party.So what we have been doing as of now (of the protest programs) is as per the stance taken by our party’s Central Committee itself in the recent past. When the party is informed in advance of such programs and struggle then it can’t be taken as to have gone against the party. All that we need is that our party remains honest and faithful towards the people and also we wish that the party doesn’t split. Our Party Chairman and Vice Chairman Babu Ram both are working hard so that the party doesn’t tear apart. We too have the same spirit and thus the party will not split at any cost.

Q4: You have had several subjects for waging a struggle. Why you then initiated it keeping your own party Vice Chairman at the center of attack Mr. Gajurel?

Gajurel: The talk to recall Babu Ram from the government is not at all a new one. We had raised this issue on a repeated basis right inside the party’s CC and steering committee meet in the past. Though the CC has so far not decided to recall Bhattarai from the post of the Prime Minister. Notably, while we have had our CC meet last time, Comrade Prachanda had told the meet that “I will internally talk to Bhattarai and convince him for resignation from the current PM post”. It has been more than four weeks plus since then. Later, he told that “this job I could not accomplish”.Thus we have adopted a strategy to force him to resign by going to the streets, pushing it in the parliament and from the party as well in order to sack this anti-national and anti-people government led by Bhattarai. The idea is to create pressure for him from all the possible sectors so that he resigns ultimately. As far as your question is concerned as to why this government should be attacked, well, the reason is very simple because this government is not only anti-national but anti-people which have to be sacked.

Q5: You told that you are determined to go to the streets and parliament against this government, however, plans and strategies for accomplishing those tasks remain yet missing? Why it is so?

Gajurel: Yes! You are correct in this regard. We have yet not finalized the dates for the struggle and the related things. It has not yet taken a formal shape because we, in the mean time, have been talking with some other parties as well in order to make it a joint struggle. The talks have been going internally. Since other parties too have assured us because of which things have got delayed. The delay is due to the fact the parties have yet to join the struggle programs. The moment they are with us, we will finalize the dates and programs which will see the participation of the nationalists, republicans and also of the democrats.The programs will soon be announced.

Q6: Do you have any plans to unseat the PM by pushing a no confidence motion?

Gajurel: It is more of a job of the party’s parliamentary board and of those who have close proximity with our stand points than a job instead to be accomplished by the Joint Struggle Committee. If the board so desires then we can use this force as well. We can move ahead with this as well. We will use all force available and fix its ouster come what may.

Q7: Have you talked already with the NC and the UML about the no confidence motion against Bhattarai?

Gajurel: Yes! We have already talked with these parties. When you talk of toppling this government then you must talk with these parties as after toppling of this government, you have to form another government instantly. For this, we are in touch with some other parties as well. It is natural that the NC and the UML must be taken into confidence in order to sack this government. We will not talk of the matters related with our struggle as these two parties would not like to listen to this.

Q8: You and your group has been advocating for a fresh revolt. Is this struggle a part of the Revolt preparation?

Gajurel: It has been the declared policy of the party to embrace a fresh revolt if the peace process remains in an incomplete form and a people oriented constitution is not drafted. This is not only the views of our team. As of now, the likelihood of drafting a people oriented constitution is not in sight. Neither the peace process has completed nor the people’s problems. Under such circumstances, the leadership should have made efforts for carrying out the revolt which remains absent unfortunately.Even if the leadership becomes reluctant and if there is the absence of a people’s constitution then the people will opt for a revolt. Yes! We are preparing for a people’s revolt.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Protesters say the strike is over for now, but their struggle will continue; Fishing and trade remain suspended

Jeemon Jacob
Idanthikarai/ Thiruvananthapuram

Archbishop Peter Fernando offering lime water to protesters at Idanthikarai to break their fast

Anti-nuke protesters at Idanthikarai have decided to call off their indefinite hunger-strike for the time being. Archbishop Peter Fernando of Madurai Latin archdiocese offered lime water to protesters to break their fast.

Nine representatives from the protesting fishing villages around the Koodankulam nuclear power project held discussions with District Collector R Selvaraj for almost five hours. Thirteen people including PMANE leaders Dr SP Udayakumar and Pushparayan were on hunger strike since 19 March.

“But we will not stop our agitation. We have decided to call off the hunger strike. No shops will open in our village and none will go for fishing. We want all the arrested persons from Koodankulam to be released at the earliest and false cases registered against them to be scrapped,” said Pushparayan.

During the meeting, the district collector of Tirunelveli assured the protesters that he would lift Section 144 orders imposed in Radhapuram taluke. But the villagers wanted an assurance from the officials. They also demanded that all those who were arrested should be released immediately. But the collector told them that he couldn’t assure such things as they have to undergo legal procedures.

Selvaraj also assured the protesters that he would take prompt action against those who vandalised the school run by Udayakumar.

Greetings! Pushparayan, the other 12 friends and I have become weaker and tired; but we are still able to sit up and talk to people. Today is the seventh day of the indefinite hunger strike. Nobody from the State Government or the Central Government has bothered to come and see us or talk to us. A medical team came to check our health day before yesterday (March 23) but no public health officials came and offered any help even though some 10,000 people have been congregating here at Idinthakarai every day since March 19th.

Our friends from Idinthakarai have been cooking some simple meals for all these people and most of the people are sleeping here as there is the prohibitory order of 144 still in effect. They are scared of going out of this foot-ball stadium sized space in front of the St. Lourdes church. The police are waiting for me and Pushparayan to collapse so that we would go to an hospital for treatment and they could arrest us there. How cruel and anti-people our governments could become!

In the meantime, the Tamil Nadu government has convened a meeting of some 13 Panchayat (local body) leaders to plan to distribute the 500-crore package the government has announced for the victims of nuclear development. The state police continues its crack down; they tried to arrest three men at Koodankulam and they managed to give a slip. The police go to some of the coastal villages and order them to go fishing in order to create a pictue of normalcy in the area. They also ask them not to carry any food by boat to Idinthakarai and threaten them with cases if they did. People defy this kind of intimidatory exercises.

This is a struggle (but ‘war’ in the eyes of our opponents) between rich, famous, powerful, upper-class and upper-caste pro-mega-development folks and poor, unknown, powerless, lower-class and lower-caste pro-sustainable development masses. The governments here work for the profit of Russia and not for the people of India. The governments engaged in massive power cuts over the past few months in order to create a huge hatred against us and opposition to our struggle.

Now that they have resumed work at the Koodankulam plant, the officials say they do not know how long it will take for electricity generation. Now people of Tamil Nadu know that Koodankulam is not the answer for our power crisis. The people of Tamil Nadu and India will wake up to many such realities soon with regards to Pechipparai dam water, reprocessing plant at Koodankulam, weapons facilities, atomic bombs etc.

India is a highly- and densely-populated country and even a small mishap at a nuclear facility will create such a havoc and meyham for millions of people and jeopardize the survival and wellbeing of millions and millions of our brothers and sisters. We are not against the progress of our country and state but we feel that such a progress should be longstanding and sustainable for our future generations also. We have no moral authority to poison the resources of our future generations in order to produce electricity for us for 40 years.

We say that let India be a world leader with creative and original ideas an d programs rather than the slave of Russia, United States and France.

The governments here are taking up a new weapon now and that is our alleged links with Naxalites (Maoists). They are fabricating evidences and concocting conversations to establish that we have connections with Naxal youth and trying to portray us as a violent group. The whole world knows that we have been struggling for the past eight months in a nonviolent manner with absolutely no violence or terror.

They will fail as they have in the “foreign hand” and “foreign money” accusations. The governments are desperately trying to provoke our people to prove their theory that “ordinary citizens” of our country do not have a mind of their own; they cannot think for themselves; they cannot stand up for their rights and entitlements in a nonviolent noncooperation cmapaign; and most importantly, these fishermen, Nadars, Dalits, Muslims, women and children are all dispensable for the growth of the Chennai-based and Delhi-based multi-billionaires. Well, that is the logic of globalization and that is what we vehemently oppose.

People power or nuclear power? Moral power or money power? Citizens’ power or State power? Which side you are on? The people of Tamil Nadu, and the people of India, please think of this!

People here and I may die in this hunger strike or in a few years out of old age. But please think of the world, country, state you want to have for yourself and your progeny. That is what human politics is all about. I would leave the golden lines of Martin Niemoller, a German pastor and theologian for you to reflect on:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Zorha and Children from Idinthakarai, Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant discuss about their protest and

Their struggle to close the nuclear plant in Kudankulam.

They also explain the situations that troubles them because of the police encircling and threatening them. Sixth day of the renewed protests Police's siege of this area makes things worse for the children and women who are already malnourished.

People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) coordinator S P Udayakumar said the police action was continuing in the coastal villages around Koodankulam.

The fast-unto-death launched by Udayakumar, another functionary of PMANE M Pushparayan and 13 others, including seven women, at Idinthakarai against the KKNPP entered the 6th day on Saturday.

Democracy and Class Struggle calls on people to publicise the struggle in Koodankulam and to listen to Zohra.

Disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes,

For the victims in both Afghanistan and the U.S.

And if I could just add one more thing…

A full day of silence for the tens of thousands of Palestinians

Who have died at the hands of U.S.-backed Israeli forces

Over decades of occupation.

Six months of silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people, mostly children, who have died of malnourishment of starvation

As a result of an 11-year U.S. embargo against the country.

Before I begin this poem: two months of silence

For the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa,

Where homeland security made them aliens

in their own country.

Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

where death rained down and peeled back

every layer of concrete, steel, earth and skin

and the survivors went on as if alive.

Emmanuel Ortiz, 9.11.02

__________________________

As I am writing this there has been a massive Police crack down on Anti-nuclear protesters at Kudankulam in Tamil nadu. More than six thousands police and paramilitary forces have been deployed. At Idinthakarai Village near the nuclear power plant 15, 000 people are protesting. 15 people including Dr. SP Uday Kumar and Pusparayan are into indefinite fast. More than 200 activists arrested. The latest update from the Kudankulam anti-nuclear struggle on 23rdMarch 2012, 1.30 P.M. is. Between 1500 and 3000 protestors have been arrested in Jawahar Thidal, Tirunelveli, for attempting to march towards Idinthakarai today. Leading the march were prominent Tamil leaders including Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's Vaiko, Thanthai Periyar Dravida Kazhagam's Kolathur Mani, Naan Thamizhan's Seeman, Panruti Velmurugan, Com. Thiagu, and representatives of Viduthalai Chirutaikal Katchi (Dalit Panthers) and Pattali Makkal Katchi. In a dazzling display of Centre-State cooperation, Tamilnadu Police were ably assisted by army fatigues-clad Army Special Forces, to herd the protestors into waiting vans and onward to Rose Mahal, where they are currently detained. Rose Mahal is currently filled to capacity, and more vans are still coming in, said Jones Thomas Spartagus, one of the activists who is part of those arrested.

Recently, Manmohan Singh the Prime Minister of India, in a very derogatory mala fide intention and to malign the anti-nuclear movement in Kudankulam (Tamil Nadu), said in an interview that the people’s resistance to the Kudankulam nuclear power plant and people who are campaigning against GM foods, are supported by a foreign hand. Apart from the interview, Manmohan Singh’s servitude to national and international capital has made him resort to the worst kind of slander and repression on anti-nuclear struggle in Kudankulam, including the struggle against other nuclear plants all over India. One protestor was shot dead by Maharashtra police in Jaitapur last year. In Kudankulam, thugs of Manmohan Singh’s party (Congress) have violently attacked the activists of anti-nuclear struggle in Kudankulam.

With hundreds of thousands of farmers committing suicide, millions of hectares of land are forcibly grabbed; thousands are dying of hunger and disease. This accusation of ‘foreign hand’ is a cruel joke on the hapless, millions of whom are suffering state repression and their land, resources, livelihood and dignity are being snatched away. The bogey of foreign hand has been played by post-independent rulers to divert the rising discontent of the masses.

I am reminded of Marx’s famous remark on Shakespearean tragedy; history repeating itself from tragedy to farce. Late Indira Gandhi had been invoking foreign hand to suppress the rising mass anger, radicalization of the working class and widespread peasant revolts. Governments at both the state and centre, justify pushing destructive projects and other anti-people policies blaming all the valid questions raised and opposition, by invoking the elusive foreign hand.

To suppress the legitimate voice emanating from Kudankulam anti-nuclear movement, Manmohan Singh has played the card of foreign hand. Therefore, it is necessary to examine who is this foreign hand, what is its motive, and whom does it represent and serve. Then it is important to expose the real foreign hand.